Thread: Free Will - Let's have a serious discussion
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Free Will - Let's have a serious discussion
Posted : 10 Sep, 2013 11:13 PM
First off, I'm looking to have an actual conversation with people, which means, those copy-and-paste walls of text that consist of lengthy verse lists (as if the rest of us haven't read the same passages before) and hardly relevant assertions that don't aim to directly interact with the conversation in any way, are not appreciated.
I would also appreciate it if people could learn to wait their turn in conversation. Please take your time and don't post new questions/arguments if there are already questions/arguments posted that have yet to be addressed by those already participating.
I don't think this is much to ask. Please respect these requests.
Now on to the topic --
Free will. Does it exist? Is it bibilcal? No I do not believe we're beating a dead horse because quite honestly I don't see many people addressing the questions that really matter in the first place. For instance, what IS free will? If you say you believe in free will, what do you mean by that? Free will is not a biblical term, so it HAS to be carefully defined before anything can be meaningfully said about whether "it" exists. I have found that very few people take the time to do this, and that causes a lot of unnecessary confusion and misunderstanding in the ensuing conversation, especially on the part of those trying to argue against the concept that the will is enslaved.
I will begin by defining my position. I believe the Scriptures clearly teach that man is born dead in sin, and that this "deadness" is defined by an enslavement of one's nature to sinful desires. What that means is man is unable and unwilling, while in his natural state, to do anything truly pleasing to God (cf. Rom. 8:7-8; John 6:44; Jer. 13:23; etc.). Hence, the will is not free to choose contrary to its inclination, because the inclination determines the direction of the will, not vice versa. This is why Jesus said that good trees bear good fruit and bad trees bear bad fruit.
Note what I am saying and not saying. I have defined "free will" as the ability to always make a contrary choice. I did not define it at the ability to choose at all, or even the ability to choose whatever one wants to choose. If your understanding of "free will" is the idea that people are able to choose whatever they want to choose, that is not a point that ANYONE disagrees with and I would challenge you to recognize that such an idea in no way conflicts with the doctrine of sovereign election. By denying "free will," rather, what I am denying is the idea that man's will is autonomous -- that is, the idea that people are able to choose contrary to the inclination of their heart in and of themselves. I would argue there is simply no debate that such an idea cannot be biblically supported. The natural man is bent toward sin and thus chooses only sin because he desires only sin. He turns to Christ, then, only if and when and because the Spirit, in His sovereignty, changes that desire from one of wickedness to one of righteousness, upon which he then acts because that is the new inclination of the heart.
I hope that offers some clarification for some people. I can say much more but I want to hear from those who argue for "free will." Specifically, I want to hear your definitions of the term. What do you MEAN by "free will"? This question needs to be answered before any arguments given.
Wow...great example...this women went to Him...she humbly asked...knelt at His feet...equated herself as a dog...even the dogs eat of the masters crumbs...in so doing...she called him...MASTER!!!...beautiful...absolutely beautiful...and it is the faith she had in Him personally to heal her daughter...Amazing!!!...Yahshua is SOoooo Good doing the Fathers will...XO
"I am posting Scripture that shows how men were seeking gods...heard the message, some were saved, many were not. I will deem phasing a verse at the end that is contained within the passage."
You clearly ignored the requests of my OP. Not only, therefore, have you failed to properly acknowledge what the discussion is about (no one is disputing that we make choices all the time), you also demonstrate poor reading comprehension skills. I would advise spending more time thinking before choosing to participate.
@letthismind2
No worries about the multiple replies... that happened to me as well; the site was running slow the other day. As to your question:
"I have one question for you scott to answer your question of what does freewill look like. What is a response to an invitation?"
I'm not exactly sure what you mean. I would simply say a response to an invitation is a choice. But again, the freewill debate is not ABOUT whether we are able to make choices. Everyone agrees that we certainly do. The debate concerns the question of whether our choosing is an AUTONOMOUS act (e.g. not determined by underlying desires that we have).
@TruthCarrier
"You can not find it anywhere in scripture to back up your statement, you can say as some have that scripture means this, as they apply they own rendering to scripture instead of believing scripture."
Actually, I can. And your comments commit a burden of proof fallacy.
1 John 5:1, for starters. "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God... ." Some translations such as the NIV translate it, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ IS born of God," indicating no logical order of the two events. However, this is not the best translation, because there IS a grammatical order present in the Greek. "Pas HO PISTEUWN ['all the believing ones' -- present participle] hoti Iesous estin ho Christos GEGENNETAI ['have been born' -- perfect tense]" ... in Greek, the perfect tense usually designates a past action with lasting results into the present. In other words, the "being born" is an action that is already completed, in the past, and the "believing" is a continuous action in the present that was given rise to by the past action. This is a common grammatical structure in John. We see the same structure, for instance, in 1 John 2:29 and 1 John 4:7. If you interpret 1 John 5:1 to mean that everyone who believes is THEN born again, you would HAVE to translate 1 John 2:29 to be saying that everyone who practices righteousness is THEN born again, because you have the same exact grammatical structure. So either you must argue for a works-righteous salvation, or your position is inconsistent.
Further, the order is clearly presented all throughout Scripture when we look at doctrines systematically. We see clearly in Scripture, for instance, that no one CAN turn to Christ until they are drawn (and that those drawn WILL come to faith -- John 6:37, 44). Take Romans 8:7-8 for instance, where we are told that those who are in the flesh CANNOT please God. Or better yet, John 3 in the description of the new birth itself, Jesus likens the act of being born again to an act of being affected by the wind blowing. You don't know where it comes from or where it goes. You have no control over it. You are dead in sin, unwilling and unable to turn to Christ by faith, and the Spirit then suddenly moves and AFFECTS your heart to believe, by resurrecting you from that spiritual death and changing your desire. Your claim that I "can not find ... anywhere in Scripture to back up" what I am saying is the only truly unfounded statement here.
@One_Sojourner
"My question is, was her it her own humble persistence and faith that allowed Jesus to heal this woman's daughter or was grace given first to allow this woman to know who Jesus really was that she may ask this blessing from him?"
Good question! I would say the latter. Our actions do not impact God, as if He were to be surprised or changed by what we do. To what degree God does express an impact of our choices or actions on His decree and plans, is itself a part of God's decree. For instance, when the Bible talks about God "repenting" of a choice He makes, or regretting having done something, or asking a person why they are doing what they are doing, certainly it does not mean to tell us that God changes, or that He cannot have what He wants, or that He does not know what a person does and why. These are all simply incidents in which God relates to His creatures through condescension (i.e. stooping to our level, talking to us in a way we can understand, like "baby talk"), and these instances are therefore themselves part of God's decree.
So, I would say that the instance of the Canaanite woman and her faith was all a part of God's decree. He determined the end, but He also determined the MEANS to arrive at that end. After all, surely God always knew exactly what the Canaanite woman would do. So the question is, if God always knew it, then was it ever ACTUALLY possible that it wouldn't happen? How can we speak of KNOWLEDGE of an event's occurrence, if the fact of its occurrence is not certain? I would simply answer that by saying, the REASON God knows all things is BECAUSE He has DECREED all things.
